Remarks by the President on the Healthy Forests Initiative
The East Garden

10:55 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for coming, and good morning. I want to
welcome you all to the White House. And I'm pleased all of you could
be here to support the preservation of a great American treasure, our
forests.

Nine months ago I stood at the scene of Squires Peak fire in
Oregon. On one side of a dirt road, where small trees and underbrush
had been removed before the fire rolled through, the forest was green
and alive. On the other side of the road, where a similar thinning
project had been stalled by lawsuits, the landscape was charred and the
trees looked like matchsticks. The contrast between these two sides of
the forest was startling, and it was tragic.

Active forest management could have saved both areas. It could
have saved millions more acres across America from the devastation of
severe forest fires and insect damage. Yet, for too many years,
bureaucratic tangles and bad forest policy have prevented foresters
from keeping our woodlands healthy and safe. The cost to America has
been high, in the loss of lives and property, and in the destruction of
woodlands and wildlife.

No region in America is immune to this problem. Wildfires,
diseases and insect infestations threaten the habitat of animals and
diminish the quality of our water. And problems on public lands hurt
private lands, as well. After all, the problems can leap across
boundary lines to destroy homes and farms and ranches and, in some
cases, towns.

The Healthy Forests Initiative that I announced last summer is
making American woodlands more safe, acre by acre. As we approach the
start of fire season we have a responsibility to do even more to
protect our forests, and we will meet that responsibility. People who
understand the responsibility we assume when we take office are on the
stage with me today, namely, Secretary Gale Norton and Secretary Ann
Veneman. And I want to thank them for their leadership and I want to
thank you for your work. (Applause.)

I appreciate Jim Connaughton, who's the Chairman of the Council on
Environmental Quality. That means he works in the White House and
helps coordinate policy out of the White House. Jimmy is doing a fine
job.

On stage with me is Andrea Gilham. She's the fire management
officer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She represents all the
people on the front line, the yellow shirts. (Applause.) She
represents the people who put their lives at risk -- sometimes
because of bad forest policy. She represents the folks who I got to
meet after touring some of the fire areas, who had worked themselves
into complete exhaustion because they were serving their neighbors,
because they were risking life to protect others. She represents the
best of America. And I want to thank you all for coming here today.

I also want to thank Rex Mann, who's the area commander for the
U.S. Forest Service. Rex is a well-organized fellow. He's a smart
man. He understands sensible policy. After all, he's made a career of
trying to make sure sensible policy came into being to prevent
devastation of our forests. I met Rex at the site of a tragic fire. I
saw how well-organized he was, and I saw the fact that he commanded a
group of great professionals, and those would be the U.S. Forest
Service professionals. And so, Rex, thank you for coming. And I want
to thank all the people who work for the U.S. Forest Service across our
country. (Applause.)

We're lucky to have some governors, particularly out West, who
understand practical, sensible policy, people that are working hard to
help the world realize that not all the smarts exist in Washington,
D.C., that there's plenty capable people outside of the Nation's
Capital. And one such governor is with us, and that's Judy Martz,
who's the chairperson of the Western Governors Association, the
Governor of Montana. Thank you, Judy, for coming. (Applause.)

Plus, we've got some good people in the Congress who care about
this issue, people who work in a bipartisan fashion to get the bill
through. We've got members of the United States Senate who are here,
strong leaders on this issue, starting with Senator Pete Domenici from
the state of New Mexico, Gordon Smith from the state of Oregon, Larry
Craig from the state of Idaho, and the birthday boy -- Senator Crapo,
where are you? Congratulations, Mike, happy birthday. (Applause.)

I want to thank the members of the House. The House is going to
take this bill up today, as I understand. I want to thank you all for
working on this. Pombo, Goodlatte, McInnis, Walden of Oregon. Sherry
Boehlert of New York has been a stalwart in bringing factions together
on the floor of the House, and I want to thank you for that, Sherry,
for your leadership. Gilchrest of Maryland, Taylor of North Carolina,
Renzi of Arizona and Mike Ross of Arkansas, thank you all for coming.
I'm proud you all are here. (Applause.)

Last year 23 firefighters died while battling disastrous forest
fires. Our professional firefighters take risk. We need to mitigate
those risks by sound policy. We need to be smart about how we manage
our forests. Those fires last year scorched 7 million acres, more than
double the average of the last 10 years. Major blazes burned in 15
states across our country, destroyed 815 homes. It cost the taxpayers
about $1.6 billion of fire suppression. The economic impact of these
wildfires and of mismanaged forests is widespread. Hardworking
Americans and the communities that count on healthy forests are
suffering.

Since 1989, five Western states -- Oregon, Washington, Idaho,
Montana, and California -- have lost 47,000 timber jobs. Four
hundred mills have closed in those states. At present, this year's
fire outlook seems less severe -- and that's good news for the men
and women who wear the yellow. Yet, the danger persists and many of
our forests are facing a higher than normal risk of costly and
catastrophic fires. The communities from Georgia to California that
are at significant risk for those fires need our help. And today we
pledge it, we pledge our help. (Applause.)

Wildfires in unnaturally overgrown forest burn hotter and spread
faster than normal fires. And their effects on the environment can be
devastating. The fires sterilize soils and trigger soil erosion. They
decimate our forests, killing even giant Sequoias that have survived
centuries of smaller fires. They destroyed habitats of endangered
species. Last year, the fire in Hayman, Colorado damaged the habitat
of several species, for example, including the Mexican spotted owl.

One reason for these deadly fires is found in decades of
well-intentioned, but misguided, forest policy which has allowed
dangerous undergrowth to build up on the forest floor. During seasonal
droughts, these small trees and underbrush act as ladders for fires to
reach to the tops of our oldest and tallest trees. They make forest
vulnerable to insect infestation and disease.

Sound science shows that we can prevent such fires by managing
forests with controlled fire, cleaning out the underbrush and thinning
the areas that are vulnerable to intense fires and insect attacks.
This is common sense. And it is the consensus of scientists, wildlife
biologists, forestry professionals and firefighters -- the very
people who have dedicated their lives to keeping our forests healthy
and our community safe.

This is policy that came from the grassroots to the White House.
We've asked experts on how best to deal with the problem. See, we see
a problem, and we want to deal with it for the good of the country.

Andrea Gilham is a fire management officer and a member of the
Blackfeet tribe in Browning, Montana. She has been fighting fires
since she was 19 years old, two years ago. (Laughter.) She has a
degree in Forest Resource Management. She's the kind of person that
Congress needs to listen to. She knows the cost of doing too little to
prevent extreme wildfires. In 1990, she was working the front lines of
the Dude fire in Arizona's Tonto National Forest, on the day six
firefighters died. Andrea says, "Everybody knows what we need to do.
The longer we wait, the more likelihood a catastrophic wildfire is
going to happen. Lives and property are at risk."

Everybody who's in the field knows what we need to do. Everybody
whose job it is to protect America and the communities from wildfires
know what we need to do. The Forest -- many in the Forest Service
know what we need to do. Enough on the House floor, I hope, know what
we need to do. We've just got to make sure that enough senators know
what we need to do to propose and get through the Healthy Forests
Initiative.

And the initiative I've laid out is beginning to make sense. We've
begun to cut through the bureaucratic red tape -- and there's a lot
of red tape here, as the people on the front line can tell you. Since
2000, the federal government has more than doubled the amount of money
budgeted for firefighting -- and that is good -- for firefighting
and fire prevention. For '04, we budgeted an 8 percent increase. And
I want to thank the members of the Congress and the Senate who are
working with us on that project, to make sure we've got enough money to
let these good folks do what they're supposed to do, on behalf of
communities all across the country.

This year, we've reduced the undergrowth that fuels fires on more
than 1.3 million acres of forest and rangelands. That was nearly twice
as many as were treated in the year 2001. We're moving at a record
pace. We've still got a long way to go. There's a lot more work to
do. One-hundred-and-ninety-five million acres are vulnerable to
devastating forest fires. For the sake of our forests and for the sake
the communities, we've got to act quickly. And that's why we've
gathered here.

I appreciate the Congress' hard work on the Healthy Forests
Restoration Act. I appreciate the House moving the bill today. I urge
Congress to get it done, to get it to my desk as quickly as possible.
The bipartisan bill -- and I emphasize, bipartisan bill -- builds
on the success of the Healthy Forests Initiative. It sets the goal of
thinning trees and cleaning out underbrush, and restoring the health to
20 million acres. I hope Congress says when we're successful in the 20
million, we need to get after the 175 million more acres. (Applause.)

This bill sets priorities for forest management by authorizing work
in the areas that are closest to rural communities, and work where
there's the greatest risk for environmental damage. It's a practical
piece of legislation. It's good, common-sense environmental policy is
what we're talking about.

The Healthy Forest Restoration Act helps the people closest to the
problem by allowing local citizens to help plan projects for nonprofit,
for profit, and for stewardship groups. And these citizens can benefit
economically from selling the smaller trees that are cleared out from
the forests.

Local citizens can be great allies in the effort to protect our
forests. Ron Bell is with us today -- where are you, Ron? There he
is; hi, Ron -- thought you would have gotten a better seat.
(Laughter.) He spent 22 years in the army, before coming home to
manage his family cattle and tree farm near Batesville, Arkansas.
About six years ago, when Ron noticed the health of the forest in his
area deteriorating from insect infestation, he decided to do something
about it. Ron, his wife and their two sons spent an entire winter
cleaning out the diseased and lower-quality trees that were crowding
out the taller trees in his 40-acre forest.

When he was finished, the forest was healthier, the bugs were
gone. And he had made about $15,000 from the sale of the undergrowth
that he cleared away. Today he belongs to a group of nearly 200
landowners in Central Arkansas who are working to manage their
woodlands and to keep the bugs out. Ron says some of the landowners
who live near national forest areas are worried because the government
moves too slowly in treating our own forests. Here's what he says.
"The conditions are preventable with a little bit of management. You
don't just have to throw up your hands. There are times you need to
get in their quickly, when the situation is dire."

And the situation is dire across America. We need to listen to the
voices of reasoned people. We need to get the politics out of this and
we need to focus on what's best for America, is what we need to do. We
need to bring people together, for the sake of our forests, for the
sake of those who work to see that our forests are healthy, for the
sake of those who sacrifice to fight the fires. That's what we need to
do here in Washington, D.C. We need less bickering, less politics, and
more sound, common-sense policy. And that's what we're talking about
right here today. (Applause.)

And the reason why that is necessary is because our forests are a
treasure, and we are their stewards. We must preserve them. We must
protect the people and communities who depend on them. We must fulfill
our promise to the next generation, that's what we must do, and leave
behind a world as blessed and as beautiful as the one our parents left
us.

Thank you for your interest in this important subject. May God
bless your work, and may God continue to bless the United States of
America. Thank you. (Applause.)